We met on a wet Thursday in November, which is to say we met in Dublin in the usual way: both pretending the rain wasn’t bothering us. I was standing outside Grogan’s with a half-broken umbrella, waiting for a friend who had already texted the coward’s message, “So sorry, wrecked, rain check?” He was trying to light a cigarette under the awning, failing every time the wind came around the corner. I laughed first. He looked up and said, “You’re enjoying my suffering.” I said, “Only because it’s very dramatic.”
His name was Cian. He worked in a print shop near Aungier Street and had ink stains on his fingers that never fully came off. I was doing a master’s at Trinity and working evenings in a café, always tired, always carrying books I hadn’t opened. We went for one drink because neither of us wanted to go home. One drink became three. By midnight we were walking through Temple Bar, laughing at tourists in plastic ponchos, and by the time we crossed the Ha’penny Bridge, I had the strange feeling that my life had taken one small, irreversible step to the left.
We were together for eleven months, though it felt longer because we lived half our relationship in public places. We couldn’t afford much, so Dublin became our living room. We drank cheap coffee on the steps near the Central Bank, sat in the back of the Irish Film Institute without caring what film was on, and walked the canal when we needed to say difficult things because it was easier to talk while looking straight ahead. He had a way of making ordinary evenings feel lit from underneath. If I bought him a sausage roll, he’d hold it like a sacred object. If we got the last bus home together, he’d call it “our carriage.”
But love can be very charming and still not be kind to you. Cian wanted to leave Ireland. Not in the vague way everyone says it after a bad week, but properly. He had a folder on his laptop called “Canada” and forms half-filled and a friend in Vancouver promising him a couch. I wanted to stay. My mother was sick then, though not dramatically enough for people to understand that she still needed me. I had lectures, shifts, prescriptions to collect, and a younger brother who pretended he was fine. Cian would say, “You can’t build a life around everyone else.” I would say, “And you can’t build one by running away every time it gets heavy.” We were both right, which made it worse.
The night we ended it, we had planned to be kind. That was our mistake. We met in The Long Hall because it was beautiful and because neither of us had ever had a bad memory there. I wore a green coat he loved. He had cut his hair badly himself, and I nearly cried when I saw the uneven bit over his ear. We sat near the back with two pints between us and spoke softly, like people in a church. He told me his flight was booked for January. I told him my mother’s treatment had been extended. He reached for my hand and I let him hold it for exactly ten seconds, then took it back because if I didn’t, I knew I would beg.
After the pub closed, we walked without deciding where to go. Dublin was shining after rain, all black pavements and yellow windows. We passed Dame Street, turned toward the river, and stood in the middle of the bridge with taxis hissing behind us. I remember the cold more than anything. It made everything feel honest. Cian said, “If we keep meeting, we’ll keep reopening it.” I said, “I know.” He said, “Then we should promise.” I asked, “Promise what?” though I knew.
He said we should promise never to meet again. Not because we didn’t love each other, but because we did, and because we had become very good at hurting each other politely. I laughed when he said it, not because it was funny, but because it sounded like something from a black-and-white film. Then I started crying and couldn’t stop. He cried too, silently, which was somehow worse. We stood there like two eejits while people flowed around us, the city completely uninterested
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
